St. Patrick's Day Freebie

Wow! So I've been away from this blog for two years, but I am ready to start creating again. I am no longer in the classroom, but I am a stay at home mom to two children. I have a two year old daughter and a 6 month old son. I love being a stay at home mom, but I miss creating things for my classroom! I hope I can still stay relevant with teaching by continuing to create products and be inspired by others using my work. So, I've created a free St. Patrick's Day multiplication color by number packet. The free download includes two color by number pages and answer sheets. I hope you enjoy it and it is useful to you and your students!

You can download for free on TpT! Have an awesome holiday! I know I will be enjoying some corned beef and cabbage!! Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Multiplication Strategies

 Just in time for the sale today I am releasing a new product called Multiplication Strategies and Games!

This product encourages discovery of multiplication concepts by having students multiply using number lines, equal groups, arrays, skip counting and repeated action. This packet includes: Mini book exploring the multiplication strategies for all the facts 2-9, Worksheets for each strategy, and 4 games. Aligned to 3.OA.1 and 3.OA.3. Provide a fun and interactive way for your learners to practice multiplication strategies beyond just memorization!

Click here to go to the product on TpT!

Teachers are Heroes Sale

It's that time again! Time for another sale on TpT. It's pretty embarrassing my last post was announcing a sale, but I promise to be better about updating! This is a great time to stock up on fun activities to get through the winter slump before Spring Break!

TpT Back to School Sale

I am so excited for the TpT back to school sale going on now! There is only one more day left! I know I'm filling my basket with goodies.

One thing I've got my eye on is Ashleigh's Social Studies Interactive Notebook. I will be teaching Social Studies to my class and another class while another teacher teaches Science, so I think this would be a fun way to compete with her awesome science experiments :)

If you are looking for something to spice up your teaching, let me suggest my Bucket Filling Activity Packet. Bucket filling is my absolute favorite thing about my classroom and it brings such positive things to even the most difficult classes!

I've been working in my class the last few days, and thanks to my wonderful hubby, I have a lot done so far! I snapped a couple of quick pictures to show you!

So this is my voice volume poster, my expectations poster and my visual schedule.

I'm super proud of this part, and I think it looks so cute! I used my polka dot duct tape on the board to separate out a place for my learning targets. My hubby put down painters tape so I wouldn't ruin the board, then he put down the duct tape on top. I love how it looks!!

Finally, I jazzed up my clock with some helpers for telling time. My hope is that they will be able to count by 5's from these numbers and be able to see easily that the 6 means 30 minutes. I can always add the rest of the times later if they still need a little support!

All the signage you see is available in my Classroom Organization~ Teal Chevron Classroom Decor! It's on sale now! Haha, I sound like an informercial, just ignore that last part!

Counting Songs

I wanted to share a little something I use in my classroom every day. It is the skip counting songs by Have Fun Teaching.



My class absolutely adores the songs, and during my observations they were dying to share with my assistant principal. They can sing all the words and I have seen a great improvement in their multiplication skills. They are able to skip count by all numbers in order to find out the answer to a multiplication problem.

Each video has a different animal or person dancing and it shows the numbers as they count up. I usually close the projector after one round each day so they can practice without seeing the number. Every year each class has their favorite and they usually have dance moves to go with each song!

I would highly recommend these songs! You can watch them on youtube, but the Have Fun Teaching site gives you the ability to buy the songs in DVD form for $20. They are not paying me for this and have no idea who I am, I just love the product so much!

It's time to start planning again...

After a much needed breather, I am back! I've been updating my products for the 14-15 school year. I have updated my teacher binder for the year. This thing was such a help to me last year, my students knew that I took it everywhere and they would always say, "Mrs. T, don't forget your binder!"

I used it all the time for meeting notes, parent contact, calendars and keeping everything organized. I could quickly tell you each students transportation method, or the schedule for the day. We had to provide a lot of information for teacher evaluations this year, so the binder helped me to keep all my artifacts in one place!

I'm beginning to think about classroom set up next year and I really really really want this new thing....

If that's not the most wonderful thing I have ever seen in the color of my classroom and everything!! I'm in love!!! I could just imagine the coffee and hot chocolate and tea and.... and... :) Let's see if I can fit it in my budget!

I hope you have an amazing rest of your summer, I know I am savoring the last days! What are you coveting for back to school?

Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale!

It's that time again! There is only one day left to shop the Cyber Sale at TpT. I know I will be stocking up on some good deals! I know this is a stressful time for all of us, so take the burden off and purchase some ready to go units! I'm currently using my fraction packet to teach fractions on a number line. So far so good! We are learning where fractions go between 0 and 1 and what they look like.

While you are in my store, be sure to pick up my RAK freebie. My class last year loved to hide little goodies and spread cheer around campus!

Fall is in the air!

I stole this image from Starbucks website, but I'm thinking this is free advertising, right? :)

I adore this time of year! I am so happy to be sipping Pumpkin Spice Lattes (Starbucks of course!) and groovin along at school. This is the sweet spot for getting so much done. I've taught them how to be in small groups and now we are moving fast! This week I will be finished with my first unit of study (shhh.. I was supposed to be done weeks ago! But you have to move slow to go fast, right?) We've learned how to ask and answer questions (we're still working on that citing evidence part) and we've done some prefix and suffix stuff, and also figurative language.

We are going to finish the unit this week with Lovin Lit's freebie featured in TpT's newsletter this Sunday. It says for grade 4-8, but I think my third graders can handle it! Is it bad that it caught my eye because it was teal chevron?

We will also be starting on rounding. Normally, rounding was really hard for third graders, but I learned last year how to make it a ton easier. First, we start off by counting by tens and hundreds in our counting circles. This helps them better understand where numbers end up. I also teach them expanded notation addition which helps them to know what the number "means" not just what it says. Finally, I teach them how to make a number line for finding the numbers that they are between before they start to round.

When they understand how to round on the number line, then we start using chants and other things to help us remember in a pinch.

I also show them this visual of a car. We talk about if they were on the road and the gas station was at zero and 10 and when they got to a certain point they would need to decide to turn around or go ahead. This is a great visual for them to understand. There are little cars with numbers for us to practice as a class where the car should go.

Finally, with these visual reminders, we are able to do the kind of rounding that is more likely to show up on a standardized test, where they are just given a number. I also included the car visual to help them remember!

I'm excited to get started and I think they are going to get a kick out of the car graphics (made by my hubby!)

If you are interested in Rounding Road you may purchase it in my store! There is a freebie rounding page in the preview as well!